

How does the structure (potential form + ように) meaning "in order to do
something in the future" differ from できるように "have the ability to do something
in the future"?

For example:

> たくさんことばが **覚えられるように** 、日本語の本を読んでいます。  
>  In order to learn a lot of words, I am reading books in Japanese.

How does this differ from:

> たくさんことばが **覚えることができるように** 、日本語の本を読んでいます。


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2018-03-29T18:08:58.943
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question
grammar
How does potential form + ように differ from できるように


ことば **が/を** 覚えられるように and ことば **を** 覚えることができるように have no "meaning" difference.
You are literally saying the same thing. But it is far more natural to use the
potential form + ように to describe wanting to be able to do something _as a
reason for_ why you are doing some other thing.

「友達と一緒に遊べるように泳ぐ練習をしています」 is more fluid and natural sounding than
「。。。遊ぶことができるように」 in that sentence. Think of it like the difference between
saying: "so that I will be able to play" vs the more natural: "so I can play".

「ができる」, on the other hand, is most often used on its own, to make a special
point of explaining something that you can do. For example, a sentence like
「私はピアノを弾くことができる」 is a simple declaration of ability. This is by far the most
common usage of the 「ができる」 pattern.

I have heard 「V+ことができるように。。。」 before, but it's rare, and as far as I can tell
it's used mostly to strongly emphasize striving for the _ability_ to do
something, where that ability is the main goal... the difference between
"studying Japanese so I can understand it" and "studying Japanese so I'll be
able to understand my wife's parents".


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answer


Disclaimer: credits to
[@user4092](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/57600/how-does-
potential-form-%E3%82%88%E3%81%86%E3%81%AB-differ-
to-%E3%81%A7%E3%81%8D%E3%82%8B%E3%82%88%E3%81%86%E3%81%AB#comment99648_57600)
and [@Eiríkr Útlendi](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/57600/how-
does-potential-form-%E3%82%88%E3%81%86%E3%81%AB-differ-
to-%E3%81%A7%E3%81%8D%E3%82%8B%E3%82%88%E3%81%86%E3%81%AB#comment155030_57600)

* * *

They are the same, except that the latter should be ことば **を** 覚えることが.

In the top version, 覚えられる is a descriptive verb meaning more like "to be
memorizable", which describes a quality of the words, which is why we have ことば
**が** (as the subject of the descriptive verb):

> ことば **が** 覚えられるように

In the bottom version, 覚える is an active verb meaning "to memorize", which
describes the action of the agent in the sentence (presumably the speaker)
doing something with the words, which is why we should have ことば **を** (as the
object of the active verb):

> ことば ~~が~~ **を** 覚えることができるように

Separately, putting たくさん on the front like this sounds odd. It seems more
natural to put that just before the verb (覚える or 覚えられる), since たくさん here
effectively acts as an adverb.


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